


In the Wrong Song, but the Lyrics Still Fit

by karrenia_rune



Category: Sliders
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 05:36:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1375786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An episode tag for "Luck of the Draw" featuring Remy and Wade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Wrong Song, but the Lyrics Still Fit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CaitN](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaitN/gifts).



> Written as a Pinch Hit

 

 

Disclaimer: Sliders belongs to FOX Television and its various creators, producers as do all of the characters who appear here or are mentioned; they are not mine. The story references the first season episode "The Luck of the Draw."

The streets were long and narrow with wide open spaces and boulevards that thread among at square-angled intervals like a giant grid. The gritty pallet of grays, blacks, browns, and whites broken up by orderly rows of green grass, shrubs and trees.

Shortly after the slide into yet another sidereal reality, to Wade Wells and the rest of her companions the violent crash happened without warning. Usually, they tried to lay low until it was time to slide. 

The Professor had always advised them not to get involved with the more dangerous worlds that they slid into but it seemed more often than not one of them always found themselves mixed up in the life of their double.

They had only been here for eighteen hours and it was as San Francisco had been turned into a utopia with no crime, no pollution, no racial strife, and the sad thing we only have three days here,. I'm starting to wish we could stay here forever"

After a day or two spent touring the city they had come back to the hotel and were in the midst of eating dinner. Curious to check what programs were available on television they had caught the last few minutes of the lottery. 

Wade recalled being ecstatic to having won and for a while, it seemed to like nothing could wrong, anything she wanted or had even had a glimmering of wanting was hers for the asking, and that included her friends. 

It was only later on when she realized that even in a seemingly perfect world there were still ugly truths underneath the glittering surface. 

It was while she was mulling this fact over as one would poke at an aching tooth in one's mouth that she recalled something that Professor Maximillian Arturo had said upon their arrival. " "We know nothing more of this world than we encountered thus far. I suggest we take precautions and take no more than we have seen others do; if nothing else it will help avoid unwanted attention or worse, trouble."

It hurt when the bubble finally burst and in the back of her mind Wade was not entirely certain if she angrier at the illusion torn away or for the fact she had not seen it coming on her own terms.

"It really is horribly unfair,," muttered Wade under his breath how much of this illusion had been created to lure the population in a false sense of security, but then, she wondered `Am I just seeing the horrible unfairness of it because it so different than what I'm accustomed to back home? Or is it just because I don't want to die?"

The other lottery winners, Ryan, like the others probably because like them, he had been born, raised and lived in the society where this practice was the accepted norm did not seem to be overly concerned about it. 

The glitter and the glamour had faded even though the empty ballroom still was as sumptuously appointed as it had ever been. Crouched behind the heavy velvet drapes that covered the wall from floor to ceiling of the orchestra stage, Wade ran her hands through the thick wiry hair of stray dog she had found and named Henry, trying to stay calm.

She believed in Quinn, she believed that everything would work out for the best and that all of them would make it back in time for the slide, and eventually, a way back home. 

It was only than when she realized with a start that she was talking aloud as much to calm her racing heartbeat as she was to the dog. And she remembered with some chagrin at her initial naiveté that she had really and truly believed that this world, this alternate version of San Francisco had to be a utopia. 

"Nothing can ever be too perfect." Wade sighed and removing her hands from Henry's wiry hair reached up and rubbed her temples with her fingers trying to relieve some if not all of the tension that had accumulated over the past two days. "Has it really been only two days? * Quinn for his part did not worry over much over the fact that illusion had not lived up to its promise, all he was concerned about now was making certain that they all got out in one piece and preferably alive. A decision had to made, and going after Rembrandt Brown was just as important as anyone else. 

He had left Wade alone in by now deserted ballroom, her only company the mangy mutt that had been the lone witness to their arrival in this world. She had the slider and told her if they were not back by it was time to slide to leave without them.

"We're not leaving anyone to die here," Quinn emphatically stated. "Not if I can help it. Wait here, we'll be back with Rembrandt, stay low, and stay quiet, otherwise they'll kill you."

"I want to go with. I can help," said Wade with a tremulous smile a shake of her head.

"Not this time, okay?" 

Despite everything Quinn managed a wry smile curve his lips and a familiar devil-may care glimmer light up his blue eyes. "Hey, we've been through worse. This will be a piece of cake. Remy would even appreciate it and if he would never let me live this down."

Rembrandt "Remy' Brown was always good for that, an ear to listen, even when he did not get most of which Remy fondly referred to as his friends 'Q'Ball's techno-babble, he listened and occasionally was a useful sounding board to bounce his more out-there ideas off; right now 

Quinn needed that, more than he could ever admit even to himself.

This is different. And should anyone ask him to explain exactly why it was different Quinn Mallory would be hard pressed to pin down his reasons.

** He really should not have been all that surprised at the vocal and numerous protestors that had swarmed around the transport conveying Remy to what the authorities referred to the Municipal Processing Facility. "Now, there's a scary thought," Quinn muttered to Professor Arturo.

The older man concurred but just at that moment could not have spared the breath to make a long drawn-out reply. 

Every second counted, every move mattered, but in the end, they really did have something like luck on their side. Together they managed to shove and weave in between the crowd and make it to the transport carrying Remy in time to get him out of there and make it back to the ballroom and to find Wade waiting for them with the slider control.

He had never really liked this Ryan fellow, and let's be honest, "thought Quinn, racing down the hallways hoping against hope that Wade would still be there, alive and with their ticket home in hand, he had never trusted him. And really, his first reaction, when Remy had been arrested, was to automatically assume that Ryan had been the one to give them up. 

Wade had taken a shine too, and into her confidence, but she was a big girl and could take care of herself. If he were, to be honest with himself in the back of his mind he realized it was no more than jealousy that had sparked his initial distrust of the man, but in the end, he had certainly come in handy, taking out the guards who had been dragging Wade away.

With only minutes to spare that small intervention had allowed Wade to activated the slider controller, trigger the wormhole and allow them to jump through and leave this world far behind them. "Goodbye and good riddance," was Quinn's last thought before he leaped into the swirling blue and grey vortex of the wormhole and away to yet another place.

 


End file.
